I just got me a new White’s metal detector.  This thing has got bells and whistles out the wazoo!  It can tell me exactly what kind of metal, or even what denomination coin is under the ground, and how far under ground it is!

It occurred to me that Metal Detecting is a lot like Fishing:  it’s an un-ending string of opportunities to find something cool.  Every time I put a baited hook in the Bay, I know that I could possibly pull up a monster fish.  Now I don’t even need to be on the water.  There’s dirt EVERYWHERE!  And where I live, there’s lots of history (especially Civil War, but even pre-Revolutionary War stuff).  Not to mention the spare change and jewelry that the soccer moms lose at the ‘tot lots’. 

So it’s got all the redneck joy of fishing, plus it’s finding ‘cool stuff’ in the dirt.  You know, because rusty ol’ stuff is cool, especially if you’re a redneck, and ESPECIALLY if you’re the type of redneck that dresses up like a confederate soldier to do re-enactments.  No, I’m not that far gone yet.

But it also requires a degree of high-tech finesse!  Knowing the difference between the signal given off by a Confederate belt buckle and a smashed Pabst Blue Ribbon can under 6 inches of Virginia red clay takes some serious high-tech skills!  Not to mention you have to be a 9th-year law school student to really understand all the do’s and don’t’s of metal detecting and collecting historic relics.

So, I’m off to do some dirt-fishing.  BEEP BEEP!

Had some friends down the other day, with their kids. We had a great time fishing, splashing around chasing minnows, and crabbing.

We’re about to head out to check the crab pots. That’s a great opportunity to let the kids get out on the boat and see how crabs are caught.

There’s only one problem.

On the way out the door, I get a call from my brother. There’s a Severe Storm Warning predicted to be headed my way. They even call the time. “It’ll be over White Stone at 6:45.” Shoot…it’s only 6:15 now! Plenty of time to get out, check the pots, and get back.

I should know better. On two levels I should know better. The Redneck in me should have known that it just ain’t safe messin’ around with Mama Nature. Storms on the water are frightful things. The Computer Geek in me should have remembered that “Accu-Weather” isn’t so “Accu”. If only I could have a job where I could be wrong so often and still get paid!

So we’re out checking the pots as fast as we can. Long about 6:30 the wind picks up and the temp drops about 20 degrees. We booked it as fast as we could, nose into the wind, headed back for the pier. We threw the kids up on the dock and told them to run for the house.

The sky isn’t supposed to be that shade of green, I’m pretty sure. That left my buddy and I trying to tie the boat up in 3 foot breakers and 50 kt winds. We managed to get tied up and run up to the house before the rain started. Horizontal rain is weird.

Anywho, we’re all ok, but I’m trying to learn a lesson from all of this. I’m not sure exactly what it is, but I’m pretty sure it has something to do with Safety First. Nah…that’s not it. I’m pretty sure it’s more about the evils of weather forecasters. Yah…that’s it.

Here’s a sample of what a vacation packing checklist is for a Redneck Computer Geek:

• crab pots
• frozen herring (crab pot bait)
• fishing poles
• tackle boxes
• laptop
• battery charger / AC adaptor for laptop
• battery charger for Blackberry
• battery charger for other laptop
• other laptop
• fishing bait
• beer
• beer
• beer
• food

Gotta check the fishing report message forums, wind forecast, and tidal charts online while I’m down there.

Sometimes I love being a RNCG!

A week in the remote highlands of North Carolina with my wife, a flyrod, a box of Hoyo de Monterey Excaliburs and plenty of 18 year old scotch was long overdue and all to short.

It turns out that I still know how to catch trout, read books, scramble up rock faces and swim in white water.

Swimming in white water is a great skill to have when you are not aware that you’re fishing downstream from a TVA dam that’s about the start generating electricity, which apparently results in an awful lot of water coming down the stream in a very short amount of time. As I understand the entire process, the guys at the dam wait until you find the perfect little trout pool and have made a sweetheart of a cast. Once all your attention is focused on that little dry fly drifting across the pool, they throw a switch that opens a gate in the dam, allowing several thousand gallons of water to flow gently out of the dam at about mach 12. The guys in the dam find this HIGHLY amusing, I’m sure. The water then gradually picks up speed coming down the stream, carrying twigs and sticks at first and eventually entire boulders and even small towns.

The first thing you notice downstream is a change in the sound of the water. The peaceful treble of water trickling over rocks turns into a low pitch hum increasing in intensity until your mind is forceably wrenched from it’s state of ZEN and you realize that your dry fly, once drifting lazily in the pool ahead of you, is now streaking by with the velocity of a shooting star. The epiphony that follows, less elegantly described by some as an “OH SHIT” moment, occurs when you realize that Shit’s Creek is a real place and you’re in it.

At moments like these, the best you can hope for is that there is someone is close-by to hear you face death with a casually whitty remark. Looking into the sky and saying something like, “Is this the BEST YOU GOT?” just as you’re overtaken by the wall of water might be appropriate. I’ve found that it’s best to have such a remark prepared in advance since coming up with one while running and screaming like a little school-girl is much harder than you might think. For the unprepared, your whitty remark may sound suspiciously like “AARGHHHGHGH… gurgle, gurgle”, which has no humorous value whatsoever, unless you’re a dam-keeper, in which case it’s possibly the funnies thing you’ve heard since, oh, about this time yesterday.

Once you’ve been turned over 4 or 5 times and struck at least 3 limbs on immovable objects, you really should check to make sure the $1200 4-piece split bamboo flyrod you were carrying is STILL a 4-piece split bamboo flyrod. It’s important to remember that your limbs will heal, but that bamboo flyrod, well, they just don’t make them anymore. If you’re any kind of man at all, you’ll be using your one remaining functional limb to thrust the rod straight up into the air and out of harm’s way…….

And remember, should the locals inquire about your injuries, do NOT tell them the story from the stream. THEY ALL know that only a moron would fish that stream after 5pm and one of them is likely to be a Game Warden who wants to see your National Park Trout Stamp and the other might very well be the guy who works at the dam.

That’s funny stuff right there!

The down-side is that the workload at the office is always double the week before AND the week after vacation.  But that’s another topic.

I’m headed to the “Rivah” (Rappahannock River), to a little house on a creek.  I’ll tie my boat to the dock and take my son fishing and crabbing every day.

We’ll walk along the beach picking up shells, we’ll watch the bald eagles play, we’ll pull up crab rings along the pier, and we’ll check the minnow trap for minnows…usually about once every 10 minutes (my son is 5).

We’ll put out crab pots…box-traps with frozen herring for bait.  Crab pots are messy things…you pull them up off the bottom and they sling all kinds of mud into your boat…not to mention how wonderful herring smells after a day of rotting in 76 degree water.  But it’s all good, since at the end of the day we’ll have a couple-dozen crabs to steam up.

We’re also going for my son’s “Junior Angler Award”.  That’s a program here in Virginia where, if you’re under 15 years old, you get a prize if you catch 6 different species by hook and line.  So far he’s caught Croaker, Spot and Flounder, and that was just one trip.  With a week to try, I’m pretty sure we can get White Perch, Bluefish, and either Striper or Oyster Toad (yup…Toadfish is on the list!).  He’ll get a certificate and either a hat or a tackle box.  Ever practical, he says, “You can only wear a hat.  You can do all kinds of stuff with a tacklebox!”

The cool thing about the place we go every year, though, is that it has DSL!  So I get all the benefits of having a day of redneck-pursuits, and then at night I can hook up my laptop and blog, chat with friends, email, and even play video games from the front porch, as I watch the sun set into Carter’s Creek.

Doesn’t that just sound like a little bit of heaven?

They provided the details of what is NOT allowed, like flip-flops, halter tops, etc.

Someone at corporate headquarters must be a Redneck Computer Geek, because at the end of the list of dress code standards, the tag line they used to sum it up was this:

“If you would wear it to mow your grass, it’s ok.”

Of course, that sent me scrambling to find my beer hat.

We also go crabbing.  (This inlet is near the Chesapeake.)  One of the ways we do this is with something called ‘crab rings’.  These are basically metal rings about 18 inches in diameter, with a cloth net in the ring.  You put bait in the middle, attach the ring to a float, and drop them overboard.  Crabs walk on top of the net to nibble the bait, and you pull the net up quickly and the crab stays in the net.  Not as risky as king crab fishing in Alaska, but the Blue Crabs here are just as tasty!

So yesterday I pulled out the rings again to get them ready for the trip.  They needed some fixin’.

The nets have a little doo-hicky in the middle that the bait (usually chicken necks) gets connected to.  But many of the doo-hickies had come off.

When it comes to fixing stuff, a Redneck Computer Geek has two options:  Duct Tape and Zip Ties.

Duct tape was out.  As good as the stuff is, saltwater is just too much.  Time to bust out the Zip Ties.  I rummaged through my network cabling bag and found the right size.  Quick as a wink, all the bait doo-hickies were reattached.  I even used a few zip ties to repair some holes in the nets.

In the evolution of the redneck, a new tool is added to his arsenal.  Zip ties are now a part of my toolbox.

That changed last weekend.

I took my buddy and my 5-year-old son fishing.  We left nice and early for the ride down to the river, and ate breakfast in the truck on the way down.  So my son is back there throwin’ down some donut holes and drinkin’ his milk.

Well, he’s only 5, and the top didn’t quite make it back on the bottle.  So as the bottle laid there on its side all day while we were out fishing, it supplied a nice steady drip of milk which oozed down into the carpet.

…which went unnoticed until I cleaned out the truck the next day.  Technically, when I cleaned the truck the next day I didn’t notice it, because when I picked up the milk bottle, the lid was on.  I DEFINITELY noticed it the next day.

Very few things smell as bad as sour milk in an automobile.  Seriously.

I checked with Google on ways to clean it.  Apparently very few people actually know.  Everyone tries things like vinegar, baking soda, alcohol…nothing seemed to work.

It was so bad, that I parked with all four windows down every day just so I could get back in the vehicle while I looked for a solution.  And I could smell my truck 20 feet before I got to it.

NOBODY rode with me to lunch that week, I assure you.

Eventually I found a combo that works:

First, I sprinkled fresh coffee grounds onto the carpet and rubbed them in good.  Man that made the truck smell good!  I’m not sure if it absorbed the odor, or just masked it, but it made me hungry every morning.

Later, I vacuumed it out and used something called PetZyme, which is made for kitty pee and other pet messes.  I saturated the carpet with that stuff.  Best $7 I ever spent!  Seriously, like the next day there was no more smell.

The PetZyme stuff smelled pretty good, and the milk smell was GONE!

A few days later I threw some bags of mulch in the back…and that replaced the ‘too clean’ smell from the PetZyme with a more realistic smell of suburbia.

I know I sound like a commercial, but the smell was seriously bad, and it’s totally gone.  Might come in handy for some of you RNCGs out there that have ‘rustic’ odors in your corporate vehicles!

Jeff Foxworthy defines being a redneck as, “…the glorious absence of sophistication.”  That’s sorta true.

I have run into a lot of people in life that are smart, technically skilled, and highly professional…AT WORK.  Then you get them home and they’d just as soon be floating in an inner tube down the river (with the obligatory side-tube to hold the beer cooler) as doing anything else.

These are blue-collar folks in white-collar jobs.  They are educated.  They are smart.  But once they get out of work, they PREFER the absence of sophistication.  They are practical, and maybe a little bit tasteless.  (”What do you mean a big tractor tire painted white doesn’t make a good flowerbed?”)

They’re real.  And they’re here to stay.

So keep your eyes peeled.  These fellers know how to blend in.  Some of them are easy to spot (especially by their sunburns after “race weekend”), but some of them could be sitting in a cube right next to you and you wouldn’t even know it.  (Unless his cube is decorated with pictures of dead things.)

I manage a small team of Data Analysts, and as a manager I have one-on-one check-ins once a week with my directs.  As a redneck, my management style is somewhat laid-back.  In fact, for our check-ins we usually take a walk around campus, through the woods, enjoying being away from a computer screen for a bit.

The problem is that being in the woods is somewhat distracting.  There’s critters out there.  It’s pretty bad when one of my guys is telling me about the difficulties they are having with one of their projects and I’m like, “Hey!  Look!  A lizard!”

But yesterday it took an even worse turn.  We were walking along talking about various projects when we came across a (relatively fresh) pile of deer spore.

“What is THAT?!”, the guy asked.

“Deer poo.”, I replied.  “Pretty fresh.  Probably from this morning.”  I was THIS close to reaching down and feeling how wet or dry it was and give it a good whiff to figure out exactly how old it was when I suddenly realized where I really was and who I was with.  He was looking at me with a puzzled look.

“So, did you get the memo about the TPS Report Covers?”, I asked, as I forced myself to keep walking.